Day 5: Baden-Baden

The Hotel Lamm’s breakfast doesn’t quite match Steigenberger, but there’s was vast price difference between the two, and the Lamm breakfast did the trick. After fighting for my share of pretzel bun, I usually left the table well fed, ready for an hour of heavy duty sightseeing.

For the first day in the Black Forest, we left the forest. Odd, I know, but I had an eye on the weather – I had activities planned for full sun, partial sun, and full rain. This day was going to be a partial sun day, high chance of rain, which meant we needed a location where there were both indoor and outdoor sights. I punched Baden-Baden into my mapper, and off we went.

It was, as predicted, an overcast day – our drive along the Schwarzwald Hochstrasse was completely obscured by clouds. That’s perfect for a city walk, though. But, honestly, Baden-Baden didn’t do it for me. It had some handsome buildings, plus an attractive promenade. We found a bookstore with an English section

                Interlude: I purchased and read Nick Hornby’s Funny Girl. Quick sketch: Life is ups and downs. When you reach your high points, do you know it? How do you stay there? What happens when you’re not at one – is it necessarily sad? Actually pertinent questions on a vacation. Worth the short read, as are all of Nick’s works.

                               along with shoe stores that were wildly overpriced – even for the cheap sneakers I was trying to replace. I don’t really know what I was expecting – posh, I guess, with the sort of ultra-high end shops that make for interesting viewing and fantasy. And a really ornate old-fashioned Casino, too, please? The one we saw – from the outside, granted – looked rather Spartan.

When in doubt, I look for a ruin, preferably Roman – I was well aware that the Romans had built bathing installations here 2,000 years ago. And after a lengthy trek up and down flights of city stairs, I found the ruins – in an underground museum that was closed from noon to 3. Mission fail.

It was time to leave. All the restaurants reeked of touristy failure, so we got sandwiches at a grab-n-go installation that turned out to be perfectly serviceable, at a reasonable price. Baden-Baden, you’re not going to soak me, though it was raining by then, so yes, I was mildly soaked. I’m sure B-B is delightful if you hit the actual baths, and take a curative. No doubt the service is first class. It’s just not worth a visit.

Do you know what was worth a visit? The “old” castle high above the town! Based on what we saw, this is not a particularly popular destination. Supposedly, there’s a funicular that takes you up the other adjacent mountain for better views, and yes, this was a twisty drive. Also, the snack bar was not operating.

Still, the solitude made the visit that much better. This felt like an authentic ruin (and I do love a good ruin) – quiet, isolated, mysterious. The castle had delightful details and remarkable verticality: it was a long and twisty way to the top, with different offshoot paths and viewing angles.

It was a perfect place for the boys to use their new toys!

And Holman and I made it all the way to the top, for some breathtaking views.

Anyway, the ruin really salvaged the day. We jetted back to Mitteltal for dinner.

OK, the scoop on Mitteltal: the town itself has three main restaurants – a Biergarten style place that we never saw anyone in; a pizzeria; and the Hotel Lamm restaurant. I’m leaving out the Bareiss hotel and its associated restaurants, most of which were within walking distance. I’m leaving these out because they were simply well beyond our spend limit for this trip. The Bareiss is a serious luxury hotel – their two main restaurants have five Michelin starts between them. I had a dream that we’d have at least one meal here, but the total would have reached four figures, and been wasted on the boys. We could have split up over the course of the week, one couple dining, one watching he kids – but one of the baseline principles of the trip was that, whenever possible, we stick together. The Bareiss, and all its Michelin stars, will have to wait.

We had Pizza.

Day 4: The Autobahn

It happened in Stuttgart, about halfway through the trip. I was exiting the parking garage under the Stuttgart art museum, onto a narrow two-way side street, going left. On the way out I saw a forklift coming at me, in the right-hand lane of the street, where I was trying to turn onto. They were doing some minor repair work to the side of the building.

Instead of stopping, I instinctually pulled hard left, to avoid the forklift. The rear fender of my van scraped against a raised barrier by the exit in the process (just what purpose that raised barrier serves is unclear to me, but it was there). The result was a clear scrape-dent in the rear left fender: the car was still fully drivable, but it’s not something I could hope the car rental people wouldn’t notice. It was bound to happen at some point, but it still bugs me – careless of me not to stop before turning.

Let’s back up: the car I rented was a Renault Transit, outfitted for personnel transport – I take it the usual use for this is as a mini utility/cargo van. The purpose was to get plenty of room, large passenger windows for good views, and a relatively cost-effective price. The Transit checked all those boxes: technically, it had seating for nine (if you counted the middle-front seat); even with the three row seating, it had more than enough luggage space for six; it had large windows; it cost about $100/day. The smaller seven-person minivan would have cost $170/day. With this nine-seater, we could even pick up and drive Nonna and Nesta around with us, which we did on Day 2 (and again on Day 14). And we weren’t cramped on the four days that required us to drive with our luggage.

It, however, had one fatal flaw that I had not checked. The size that I prized so much made this van “non-standard” in terms of insurance – meaning, my credit card, which usually covers car rentals for accidents, did not end up covering this. I’ve been renting cars in Europe for so many years that I stopped checking the details – been there, done that – and it will cost me this time. Oh, I try to take the long view: the smaller mini-van that I could have rented instead would have run $1,000 more in charges anyway; purchasing the rental insurance would have been an extra $500, and come with a high deductible. In retrospect, I’m lucky I wasn’t in a serious accident, because it turns out I was pushing 90 on the Autobahn without any insurance. Yikes.

So I’m going to place a retraction here: I’ve recommended all along that driving Euro roads is no big deal, go ahead and try it on your next vacation. And mostly it wasn’t: German highways are wonderfully constructed, smooth and in good repair. I can point out, for example, that our kids got car sick only twice on the trip: once  while winding up through the twisty Black Forest roads (to be expected – Holman had been playing on his Kindle the whole drive). The second time? Paine, on the bumpy I-20 ride back from ATL.

But I speak the language, and am pretty familiar with the similar driving terms in French & Italian. This is no small thing, I now realize – I can concentrate on driving, without having to work out what the signs are saying, too. I really don’t know if I’d be able to say the same if I was in Beijing or Wroclaw. It’s not a small thing, and I realize now that unfamiliarity with road signs and terms amounts to a constant distraction – bad for driving. And if you do rent – check the fine print on your credit card. Go ahead and call the benefits team and specifically ask what vehicle is or isn’t covered.

Anyway, this is Day 4 -- transit day. Our schedule was for us to leave the Steigenberger and head further into Germany. But before that, we drove into Amriswil, CH, for a lovely lunch hosted by Nonna and Nesta. By now I was pretty well familiar with the drive Konstanz-Amriswil, and didn’t need the assistance of the car navigator. However, I relied on it pretty much throughout the trip, once I figured out how to work it properly. E.g. – right off the bat, getting from Zurich to Konstanz was confusing, even with my pre-printed map routes (perhaps because of these – this is also known as a “Fox Butterfield”). I found the GPS to be very reliable, although on one occasion it took us on a route that made little sense; on other occasions, it had trouble with the frequent road closings that happen in the Black Forest. But otherwise…I asked Annemarie how I ever got around Europe without a GPS. She reminded me that we often got lost; and yes, there’s a town between Florence and Siena, in particular (Poggibonsi) that caught me in a Groundhog Day style navigational loop two or three times back in 1999.

Once out of Amriswil, it was on to Deutschland, and our main stopping point in the Black Forest. The drive wasn’t particularly difficult. German highways have no billboards, so you can’t play distracting billboard games with your kids. We let ‘em play on their Kindles (see above) and admired the German countryside – gentle rolling terrain with farms nearly everywhere; the Germans can’t afford to waste any space. If it’s specifically not forest, it’s being put to use. On that score, I recounted to the boys the story of Armenius and the battle of the Teutoburg Forest. No wonder they still keep room in this jam-packed country for woodlands.

And, there’s a day. We landed in Mitteltal late afternoon, took a brief stroll along the town’s main street, and had our afternoon wine. We dined at the hotel restaurant (Hotel Lamm) more traditional German fare (I had a mild venison with a cherry sauce). The food wasn’t special, but good enough for us to try it again later in the week, which was possibly a mistake.

They also served a delicious white asparagus soup. Well, who didn’t? We were close to the Asparagus Capital of Germany, and it was in season. That meant that the country was awash in this vegetable; nearly every restaurant featured it on the menu, and roadside stands were selling it every few kilometers. White asparagus is larger, milder, and less fibrous than its green cousin, which makes it very versatile, as a base or even feature, say, with hollandaise. I was pleased to be there at peak season. At first. After 10 days of an endless parade of white asparagus, one starts to hope for a carrot or two.

Day 3: The North Shore

No, not that North Shore – having toured Appenzell in Day 2, we decided to take a drive along the German north coast of the Bodensee. This area is virtually unknown to US tourists, but popular with Germans who enjoy relatively sunny climate and lovely lakeside views. As you drive along the coast you’ll see vacation apartment complexes and tidy hillside motels. The view from the roadside, overlooking the lake, is magnificent, though the high Alps were still under cloud cover. We substituted interesting cloud formations for the missing mountains.

From Konstanz, you can drive around the far northwestern edge of the Bodensee to the northern shore, or take a 15 minute ferry that puts you in Meersburg, about $6/person. We did this, because, ferry! The boat has a nice little upper deck with a café, too.

I wasn't sure why Meersburg exists – don’t take that the wrong way, Meersburgers. But with other towns, it's immediately evident why they exists (Konstanz is at a strategic point at the lake); or, guidebooks will give you a quick summary (e.g., “Stuttgart” means “Stud Garden”, being a popular place for Kings and Emperors to breed horses). Meersburg gets a brief mention in my Fodors guide book, but not much more.

This is a shame, because it’s a lovely little town – I won’t say “not to be missed,” I don’t doubt we missed some other lovely towns, too – but well worth the visit. Its cheerful streets, lined with verdant trees and colorful houses, run meanderingly down to the seaside. On the way you’ll see a palace with a delightful view over the lake, a peaceful town square, a steady watermill, and cobbled, mossy alleys. The star, though, is the well preserved Meersburg castle, sitting atop a rocky outcropping just below the palace.

I had promised the wife and kids plenty of castles, so in we went (note that the entry fee is not cheap, $10 or so per person). Meersburg castle is not large, which works in its favor. There’s a mild amount of up and down on the tour, but you’re not climbing way up a tall tower. Presumably, if you needed a lookout, you were better off going up to the top of the lake bluff.

Indeed, this castle seems to have been for a.) localized police control, and b.) dominance of the lake below the town. Meersburg sits at the shortest crossing point from Konstanz, which indicates its reason for being – as a ferry point. It’s not much use as a land base, and therefore was probably ignored during the 30 Years War that devastated so many German towns and fortifications.

Much to our benefit. The castle rooms have an evocative early renaissance feel, wood carvings and simple furniture, basic kitchen and stores area. I don’t think it’s completely authentic, but I can imagine life back in the 1600’s would have looked pretty close.

There’s also the obligatory weapons room and a look into an actual dungeon – unfortunate souls were lowered by rope into a dank pit, and sometimes starved to death. German tourist castles frequently house torture museums, which are popular to the public but more than we want to expose the boys to: they hack at each other enough without getting other ideas. This museum was free from such.
Indeed…on the way out we allowed the boys to use some of their own money to purchase wooden play swords. Yes, the results were predictable – child A stabs at child B, child B escalates with a swat at child A, child A complains to Parents. But that happens all the time without the toy swords.

Flashback: two years ago, on our vacation in Italy, we generally had good food, with two notable exceptions. Those exceptions were tourist restaurants in Venice and Florence. Our implied goal on this trip was to avoid the German version of the tourist trap: pretty much anything located on the main square or other high-traffic attraction. Meersburg had a couple such locations, and though we were hungry, we skipped them. Instead, we found an unassuming coffee shop that served sandwiches, and came out the better. We got six sandwiches, three of which were served on pretzels. Why can’t everything be served on pretzels? Every sandwich shop should offer a pretzel/ pretzel bun option! They’re delicious! Except perhaps when these guys try to do it. I had one of those. It was a sad mistake. The German one was tasty.

We had to meet Nonna and Nesta on the Swiss side later in the afternoon, so lingering in Meersburg was not an option. Our target goal was the ferry crossing in Friedrichshafen, 10 miles east. Friedrichshafen, as I had mentioned, suffered badly during WWII, and was rebuilt without the tourists in mind. Their downtown pedestrian zone is…sterile? Not even – that could imply a deliberate Swedish design aesthetic. I’ll substitute dull. The highlight for them is the Zepplin museum on the waterfront, and we got there with an eye to take a tour. But we ended up thinking better of it: I’m sure there were interesting installations, but we didn’t want to spend $10/person on a short walk-through; and it was sunny outside, so 2 hours indoors was not a good idea: we had to take advantage of the good weather while we could. therefore, off on a longer ferry ride across the Bodensee, landing on Romanshorn, CH.

Romanshorn is another fun little Swiss town, not designed for tourists yet sweet none the less, once you got away from the ferry docks. You’d never see it marked on any tour guide book or site – there’s nothing special about it. But they had a pleasant waterside garden area with a café that served cake and ice cream (and didn’t take credit cards). The boys snacked and ran around, we drank wine, and had just enough cash to cover the bill. 

And that’s another day. Do you see a pattern? Out by 10:00, see enough to get the sense, wine time kicks in at 4:00. We didn’t always hit that deadline, but made a game effort. With the afternoon restorative completed, we pushed it back over the border to Konstanz. In all, that was the 9th border crossing for us in 3 days, and not once did someone stop us at the check point.

Dining that night was at a jewel spot we’d tried two nights earlier, but couldn’t get in. Zum Guten Hirten is in the old town section of Konstanz, wooded darkness inside, beer garden style outside, on tables that push into the pedestrian only street. In theory, multiple groups can sit at long table, that’s often customary there, though we’d specifically reserved a spot for the six of us.

This was casual but delicious German fare, especially a.) the flatbread the kids shared, and b.) the Wurstsalat, which we devoured quickly. Wurstsalat – sausage salad – contains no “salad”, as we recognize it. It’s bologna-style sausage and cheese, cut into strips (or bite size pieces, as Ernesta makes it) in a salad dressing. Healthy? No. Delicious? Yes.

Day 2: Appenzell

If you’re going to Switzerland, you generally expect to see:

1.)    Alps

2.)    Cheese

3.)    Chocolate

Indeed, that was our master plan for Day 2: from Konstanz, it’s maybe 90 minutes (ok, two hours) to the Saentis, which towers 2,500 meters above the east Swiss Alps. It’s a classic gondola-cable-car ride & mountaintop panorama restaurant, straight out of 60’s James Bond. I’m told that, on a clear day, you can see the Saentis all the way from France.

Our day was not clear. A low pressure front was swirling right over Western Europe, causing cloud, rain, and even severe flooding stretching from Paris to Bavaria. I really wanted to take the boys up a cable car, but we’d be in a cloud once we got past 1,000 feet. Move along, boys, nothing to see here.

We flipped the script, and decided to stay more earthbound. With some luck, we could manage points 2 and 3, and see some of the better parts of the Appenzell region in which my parents live.

Aside: With some apologies to this fellow, I get the feeling that being a town planner is a breeze of a job, at least in most European cities. “You want to make a change? Request denied.” If you’re in charge of Venice, you know your livelihood depends on preserving the look of the city (or, the old portion of it) at all costs. What happens behind the façade is none of your business.

Swiss cities seem less concerned about preserving their old towns: a few, like Lucerne, make sme Francs off of their medieval structures (until they burned down), but mostly concerned themselves with steady growth and prosperity. Nor was there any need for the type of radical overhaul necessary in, say, Paris, where, Baron Haussmann famously leveled entire neighborhoods to give cannons a straight shot at the peasants manning the barricade.

So it seems to be, at least, with our first stop, St. Gallen. By now you are probably familiar with the role the Irish played in preserving Christianity – the short: dark age barbarians pushed the remnants of Roman Christianity to the backest of Western European backwaters, Ireland. Frankish power restored some semblance of peace and security. Irish missionaries returned to the continent and, supported by the Franks, found fertile ground for converts. So it was when (according to our resident local, my mother’s spouse Ernesta) Irish monk Gallenus found a pleasing Alpine hillside to call home, and started to attract a following.

Give or take a few hundred years, and the Swiss would discover independence (including how to beat a mounted knight, without gunpowder); a few hundred more, and they figured out how to make the insurance business pay off. What you have now is a prosperous town untouched by strife or complication; the Swiss, indeed, thrive on consensus (not a small trick – Switzerland has four official languages).

A few hallmarks of that general prosperity: any baron can throw up an ornate castle, but local burghers only have a few square meters of storefront to work with. Look especially for the preponderance of carved woodwork in the doorframes and overhangs, you could spend an hour on a short alley if you really wanted. But also note the shops behind these storefronts – working enterprises (tax accountants & such) or decidedly useful stores (Globus or H&M). St. Gallen at lunchtime is a hive of local activity, without a tourist in sight. A stop here later in the trip would have been refreshing indeed.

St. Gallen’s main church is large and clearly still functional: I often wonder if the other “sight-seeing” churches in Europe get any practical use. Does the Duomo in Florence still have an active congregation? Do the parishioners at the Wieskirche ever look around and say, “man, this is just too much decoration”? St. Gallen’s church carries a smattering of baroque touches, along with the Germanic love of gleaming white walls that projects order and cleanliness. I’m told church attendance in western Europe clocks in somewhere around 10%, but you wouldn’t know it here. It's well kept, but clearly not a museum.

We weren’t going to spend all day in St. Gallen – this was early in the trip, and we were starving for half-timbered cuteness. 40 minutes later we parked the van in Appenzell Town, which fit the bill neatly. Appenzell Town consist of an adorable main street that runs from its central square over to the river, with a few side streets to duck down. Cows and barns are within 500 yards of the village center. Pastoral smell is pervasive. We found a fairly well rated lunch spot and settled in with a few local specialties.

Look – I’m there for the cheese. Barring a fondue, I opted for the Kaeseschnitte, melted Appenzeller cheese over thick farmer’s bread; the English call this a rarebit. For the kids, we ordered a breaded-fried wedge of cheese – think Greek saganaki. As a reminder, Germanic food is seldom deep-fried. Usually it’s pan-fried, which means french fries will generally confuse a local kitchen (though they’re offered everywhere). I liked my cheese, as did the boys (the English menu called their entrée a cheese-steak). Their dish came with a fresh beet salad that was a revelation.

A curiosity: I have always worked under the myth of “American portions” – that our restaurants pile the plates up with food, and Europeans dole out more sensible portions. We found this to be the case nowhere. Each of us could have easily split their entrée, here and beyond. We though this may have been a tourist town fluke, and it took us nearly a week to finally learn that the portions were huge everywhere.

Anyway, repasted, we ambled down the main drag; the central square was under complete repair, off-limits. I had threatened my wife with the purchase of a garden gnome for our humble Birmingham abode – I considered these to be particularly German, but who knew? The largest selection of these would be found here. Once we bothered to look, we noticed garden gnomes all over Switzerland.

Tourist shopping is nearly impossible here – they have shops, but the Franc conversion rate makes any purchase unaffordable. E.g., $100 for a leather belt for Holman: sorry, can’t do it. Later, we’d learn just how extreme the Swiss cost of living is, but for now we chalked it up to tourist mark-up, and headed on. There was, after all, still a cheese farm and chocolate factory on the list.

Well, at this point you have to decide if you’re going to throw your kids a bone. So far, a little boredom was setting in for them – town seeing isn’t their agenda. Cheese farms are OK for kids, but they needed to get a little excitement in the works. We struck out towards one of those alpine cart-slide installations, you know, a wheeled sled track curving down a hill. That’s going to perk them up. Sadly, just as we pulled up, a few rain drops came. The operator of the track said they close under such conditions – darn you, Swiss liability laws! With much driving ahead (to get back to Konstanz, and then for me to take the boys to overnight with Nonna and Nesta) we had to skip the chocolate and cheese installations. We ducked into a chocolate shop -- the boys got a selection. That'll work.

Look, you can’t do everything, and don’t feel sad for that fact. Try to focus on what you did get to. Swiss towns may lack the “wow” sights – the large cathedrals or canaled quarters – but they make up for it with charm and authenticity. I never once got the sense in St. Gallen that some town planner was saying “no, that’s not cute enough.”

Day 1: Konstanz

“He’ll arrive hungry, and tired.” –British Airways commercial

Vacation officially starts, in my book, when you leave the house, but the fun doesn’t really start until you reach your destination. For me, that’s getting to the customs agent. I love getting that stamp in my passport, and if I’m going to a German speaking country, I’ll chat the agent up. Especially. My German grammar is abysmal, and my vocabulary is grade school – but I have a native command of German phonics. I can make the correct vowel sounds, along with the l’s, r’s, and dreaded ch. I’m guessing there are a few thousand natural born Americans who can do correct pronunciation in German, most having gone to school here. Anyway, it’s fun to get the surprise look from the locals, they never expect it.

Customs cleared, car rented, off we were to Konstanz. Constance (in English) lies at the western end of the Bodensee (aka Lake Constance), where it funnels into the Rhine. It sits right on the border with Switzerland, and enjoys (as far as Germany goes) a considerable amount of sunshine, due to some micro-climate effects.

Konstanz also escaped serious bombing during WWII, which is a constant theme in visiting German cities -- which ones were leveled and rebuilt? Konstanz’ old town is well preserved, while Friedrichshafen (30 minutes away on the lake) doesn’t have one anymore. One tends to visit German cities for their old town, though some rebuilds (or new builds) are worth the while, too.

We reached our destination, the Inselhotel Steigenberger, at 11:00. This is another common problem I covered before – flights land early in the morning, hotels become available later in the afternoon. You want a place to rest, wash up, maybe take a nap, but you don’t have one.
Steigenberger, to its credit, did its best to hurry a room for us. But our room was still occupied when we arrived, not much they could do. We deposited our bag at the desk, off we went to lunch.

You’re freshly landed in Germany. You want some German food, right? Right. Just don’t land on a Monday as we did. As is often the case in the US, German restaurants close on a Monday. The top three TripAdvisor locations close to us were shuttered; the streets were empty. Our salvation was an Italian joint a hundred paces into the old town – it was deserted and looked a little suspect, but that’s because we approached from the rear, where their outdoor seating was.

 Actually the food was fine – continental pizzas are different from the ones we get, very thin crusts that are meant to be eaten with knife and fork (as are all German meals). Don’t ever feel guilty about going to Europe and having pizza. These weren’t the best I ever had, but they certainly weren’t the worst. And they served wine. The Steigenberger called us just as the check was paid, one room was ready.

“Just as the check was paid” – that was a nasty surprise. Not the amount, mind you, but the payment method. German retailers have gone completely to Chip+PIN on their credit cards, if they take them at all. Check your wallet – you may have a card with a chip, but do you have a PIN? Do you know it? It’s not nearly as common here. This was new to me, and meant most of my plastic was useless (including my BBVA Amex that was giving me 10X points). You’ll need to make sure, before going to Germany, that you have cards that will work. We had cash right then and there, and relied on our checking accounts after that. Which is a pain, and not always possible. Luckily, the hotels take traditional Mag Stripe cards, or we’d have slept in a shelter.

Back to the Steigenberger – literally for us at the time. The Steigenberger is a destination hotel, which means you’re more likely to spend time there outside of sleeping. As the hotel name indicates, the grounds are technically on an island (a small but swift stream separates it from the mainland), and have a small but lovely garden, plus a ramp into the lake for swimming (only for the brave – the current looks to be too fast for any swimmer to combat. I’d be halfway to Amsterdam right now if I hopped in).

The hotel itself is a renovated former cloister/convent (another recurring theme in Europe -- what to do with all the old unused monasteries), with correspondingly frescoed atrium depicting significant moments in Konstanz history. Should you go there, look for the saucy wench receiving the fishes during the age of the lake pole houses. Saucy wenches are a Konstanz theme, you’ll find.

The Steigenberger’s endearing feature is its seaside terrace, perfect for cocktails, of which we availed ourselves copiously (I can recommend their Mai Tai, though I switched to wine to keep the cost in check – it was early in the vacation, after all). On a clear day (of which we had two, on the trip) you can see the high Alps rising over the opposite shore. Even without those, the location was ideal.

The hotel has a highly respected restaurant, and my wife and parents would dine their on day 2 while I was in Switzerland. For day 1, we ate at a perfectly good spot a few paces down, on the water. Just outside the restaurant was one of Konstanz’ more famous landmarks – a rotating statue of a prostitute (saucy wench alert!) holding a shrunken pope and shrunken emperor in each arm. There’s a story to it that I won’t recount, but suffice it to say that the locals have taken to this oddity with particular zeal. And why not? I’m proud of Birmingham’s iconic Vulcan statue, but now I think – it’s all good and fine, but can’t we get it to rotate, too?

And, that's a day -- remember, that first day just won't have much activity. Your proper strategy is to get yourself ready for day 2.